Huh huh!
You mean, like the personal computer? Any idea who shelled out the dough on all the indispensable basic research to make this possible?
…
That’s right! The evil go-vermin, via the NASA space program. Kinda tough to send people in space inside a very small module when you need mission critical computational power, don’t you think? NASA didn’t drop by the hardware store for an off-the-shelf solution, provided by the free market. They invented the field, pure and simple.

The Internet economy? Amazon, eBay, Google, all wonderful creations of the free market…paid by who exactly?

DARPA anyone?

I could go on and on. Suffice to say that in my professional field, I don’t know where we would be without the NIH and all the billions they spent on basic research that the free market had no interest in…until they saw something juicy to latch on.

So, this notion that go-vermin bad, because it is, well, bad is circular logic at its worst. In times like we live in, we need everyone’s help: private sector, NGOs, government, churches, academia, unions you name it. The old ideological fault lines need not apply, an I, for one, is sick and tired of them all.

Think different! is more important than ever.

“I am in principle in favor of a deep and large stimulus package. We need one, but what is on tap is not what will stimulate real job growth. All it does is create more debt that will have to be paid later by our kids. What else could we do? For instance, US companies have so much money squirreled away that Allen Sinai of Decision Economics concluded that, if the US lowered tax rates temporarily on repatriated earnings, companies would repatriate US$545 billion.”

“Why not set a 10% tax rate to simply bring the money home, and a 5% rate if they use it for capital spending or to create jobs? Now that is stimulus that would actually result in more taxable income!”

Riiight! After dissing the package without providing any evidence that “it is nothing but pork-laden” what is the brilliant insight? Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. Does anyone believe that repatriation of capital from elsewhere would prompt corporations to invest in THIS environment? When credit is so difficult to secure, if not for themselves, then for their own customers?

Give me a freaking break!!

Not to outdo himself, Mauldin, in a previous article, just couldn’t resist offering a multibillion stimulus to the Military as a growth and jobs oriented stimulus, instead of alternatives energies and infrastructure.
Of course, no evidence whatsoever was offered as to WHY alternative energies and infrastructure were such baaaaaad ideas, when the American Society of Civil Engineers anticipate the need for 2.2 TRILLION dollars of investment in the next 10 years just to fix (more if we want to modernize) our infrastructure. As for alternative energies, it is clear that is is way over his head about the topic.

Political creep of this sort makes me look at his articles with more than skepticism. Sad thing, because I’m a long time reader and I’ve learned a lot from his missives. When financial analysts of great quality start to be infected by ideological considerations, this can’t be a good thing.

Give me a break!

Taken in combination with some of the other contributions here, one finds little cause for optimism, and high suspicion of all current projections by the talking heads.

Our growth model seems about cooked for good. Maybe drastic new industries and activities can create a new economy, when pigs can fly.

Real Estate. Gold, and Equities: The Clarity of the New Science of Saturation Macroeconomics and Quantum Asset Valuation Saturation Growth and Decay Curves

Massive Percentage-wise Commodity, Equity, Real Estate, Gold Devaluation Nonlinearity Immediately Ahead:

On the day that a 600,000 US jobs lost was reported the nondebt asset markets move higher. The old nonscientific economists’ and asset hawkers’ banal interpretation: the terrible unemployment numbers make it more likely that a stimulus package will be passed and more expeditiously. (600, 000 people will not be driving regularly to work – what effect on an oversupplied relative to demand gasoline market?)

Since their 21 November 2008 primary or secondary valuation low’s, the Wilshire, NiKKEI, and Euro composites, composite gold equities, and real estate composites have been following similar 10-12/28/16 of 16-18 to 22 day x/2.5x/1.6-2x caricatured Lammert growth fractals as residual money from the initial assey valuation collapse is distributed to available investment vehicles(including debt instruments). 16 to 18 days would complete a rough Fibonacci multiple of the first 10-11 day base and be a reasonable a final lower valuation saturation high. At the end of this small growth fractal growth and within a dominant asset valuation decay time period is a massive percentage wise nonlinear drop expected between weeks 56-60 of the second decay fractal of a y/2.5y/2-2.5y :: 24/55 of 59-60/55-60 weekly primary asset decay fractal series – all interpolated within a 14/35/28/21 :: x/2.5x/2x/1.5-1.6x monthly fractal series beginning in 2002. The US ten year bond has completed a 11/28/22/18 day x/2.5x/2x/1.6x Lammert growth fractal with day18 between day 17 and 19 lows.